Steeljaw Scribe

Notes and commentary on things present, reflections on a career in naval aviation and serendipitous items as strike me at the moment…

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Entries from October 2007

Flightdeck Friday: Nuclear Edition

October 25th, 2007 2 Comments

In keeping with the memory of the Cuban Missile Crisis which was 45 years ago this past week, a couple of video reminders, the first from Hollywood’s take (See last week for the real story  . ):

And what was risked…
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The New Maritime Strategy: Responses to Today’s (Oct 24) Reactions

October 25th, 2007 8 Comments

SJS Readers,
Good morning, and sorry I didn’t post last night—I let my personal life get in the way of this new-found hobby. (ed. Careful - it does have a certain addictive nature about it.  - SJS)  It will probably happen again.  The last few days have been very interesting and educational. I’m beginning to see [...]

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The New Maritime Strategy & The North Pole: The Russians Weigh In…

October 25th, 2007 1 Comment

(see yesterday’s aticle re.the ‘07 end of summer Arctic ice pack edge shrinkage - SJS) 
RUSSIAN NEWS AND INFORMATION SERVICE  23 OCT 07)
MOSCOW. (RIA NOVOSTI POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT MAXIM KRANS) … The Arctic is rapidly becoming a scene of "competition and conflict for access to natural resources."
This is how it is defined in A Cooperative Strategy [...]

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Polar Ice Reaches Record Minimum - Sept 2007

October 24th, 2007 1 Comment

NASA and other satellites monitoring and measuring the extent of the seasonal contraction of the Arctic ice pack have observed the greatest single year contraction in almost thirty years of observations.  Illustration (1) below is a plot of the last two years of the ice pack.  Illustration two is a composite of this years’ survey (click on [...]

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The New Maritime Strategy: SECNAV’s Speech

October 24th, 2007 2 Comments

SECNAV introduced the new MS before the International Seapower Symposium at Newport last week - and the speech is well worth reviewing if you haven’t heard or seen it yet (available here or with highlights here).   It is revealing in both the expected expository points re. the new MS as well as emphasis he placed in [...]

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The New Maritime Strategy: Responses to Today’s Reactions (23 Oct)

October 23rd, 2007 10 Comments

SJS Readers,
Another great day on the Maritime Strategy front, including a great back and forth via email with one of the guys I respect most in this town who has some serious problems with the strategy, and some work putting together a series of briefings for flags to take on the road.
I continue to get [...]

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Twenty-Four Years Ago Today In Beirut…

October 23rd, 2007 4 Comments

Read about it…and remember.
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The New Maritime Strategy: Responses to Today’s Reactions

October 22nd, 2007 13 Comments

            Good evening, SJS readers.  I’ve spent a good bit of the day scouring the internet for reaction to the Maritime Strategy, and I thought I’d take some time to give some thoughts on issues raised on this blog and others. 

Climate change.  There has been some [...]

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The New Maritime Strategy: Precedence of Strategic Concept and Resource Allocation

October 22nd, 2007 8 Comments

Quite a bit of back-and-forth over the new MS and lack of discussion over force structure/resource allocation.  Not the first time this has been confronted though and the following paragraph, drawn from a 1954 article in Proceedings by Samuel P. Huntington may be particularly germane to the current discussion:

"A second element of a military service [...]

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Maritime Strategy 2007: The Team Leader Speaks

October 21st, 2007 10 Comments

 Ed.   As many know by now, the new strategy was released earlier this past week at the Naval War College and has generated a good deal of discussion.  The expectation is that the level of that discussion will elevate next week around the blogsphere.  In anticipation of that I asked the author if he would [...]

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